A curtain rail in a high position or narrow box without reach of one's hand needs such curtain runners as disclosed under JP, U, 59-44386. The runner has a runner body and a rod vertically fitted in the runner body. The rod is pushed to the bottom of the runner body for coupling with the runner body which is previously mounted in a rail. The rod is generally attached to a curtain cloth after it has been coupled with the runner body but sometimes is fixed to a light cloth before it is fitted in the runner body. The runner body is shaped in the form of a box which is provided at the top with a pair of wheels for rotatable movement within a curtain rail. The body has a bottom wall formed with a bore in which a split sleeve is fitted. The sleeve has top and bottom flanges each having a plurality of splits to expand and contract itself. The bottom flange can be contracted smaller than the bore in the bottom wall of the body when being inserted into the bore from within. The sleeve, after fitted in the bore, has the top flange placed on the peripheral edge of the bore. The curtain rod has an expanded head to be inserted into an axial hole of the sleeve from the bottom. The head is larger than the top portion of the axial hole but smaller than the other portion of the hole. Upon insertion of the head into the axial hole, the head raises the sleeve to the uppermost position and then causes the top flange to expand the narrow top portion of the axial hole in a manner that it passes through the sleeve. The head, after passed through the axial hole, is released or lowered to rest on the top flange which has returned as it is.
The curtain runner as disclosed has the sleeve to be fitted in the bore of the runner body from within, so that the bottom flange can not be large enough to guide the expanded head of the curtain rod into the axial hole. Therefore, the rod does not fit easily into the axial hole of the sleeve if the rod and the sleeve are axially shifted from each other. It is particularly difficult to fit the rod in the runner body in a curtain rail which is disposed in a high position or within a narrow box not within the reach of one's hand.
The present invention is intended to provide a curtain runner in which the curtain rod is easily fitted in the sleeve even if the rod is somewhat eccentrically pushed to the bottom of the sleeve.